True Love

I am a lifelong cynic when it comes to the topic of love. I don’t know exactly how that came about. I do know that as I dated one woman after another that things just weren’t working out for me in this area. I started looking at the relationships of others and the dating world in general and became more jaded as time went on. I went to the internet to research the topic and both philosophy and science confirmed what I had observed. Love for the most part is a crock of shit. Most people in relationships are going to cheat on each other. Women will use men for money. Men will use women for sex and discard them. All of this has as its aim nothing more than the reproduction of the human race. With 7 billion people on the planet, this system has worked wonderfully. The fact that those 7 billion people are left largely miserable as a consequence shows the dark side of it all. The aim of love is to leave women broken hearted and pregnant.

The glimmer of hope in all this gloom is the existence of rare couples. These couples exhibit a rare trait that I can only call “true love.” I am certain some Greek or German philosophers would coin a special word for this phenomenon and maybe they have. I don’t what that word would be, so I opt for true love as the best expression.

True love as demonstrated by these couples is a wonderful thing to behold, and it really exists. It is like finding a unicorn when you had spent your entire life believing they didn’t exist. True love exists. It just doesn’t happen often, and it is obscured by counterfeit love. But it is there. I have met couples in the flesh and online who have this true love. There is the example of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. There is the madness of the Mogul Emperor who built the Taj Mahal to honor his dead wife. True love is a real thing.

The problem with true love is that people want it, but they don’t know how to find it or even what it is. This is because the world abounds in counterfeit love. I know because I have experienced this counterfeit love many times. It feels real for a time, and then it fades into cold misery. Or, it gets shattered to pieces by infidelity or irreconcilable differences. Most people settle for whatever comes along, but what they end up with becomes intolerable. It is so bad that I think people would be better off alone.

How do you tell the difference between the counterfeit and the real? I have given it much thought, and this is what I have gleaned from my observations and experience:

1. True love is self-evident.

When you find true love, you know it. There is no doubt. But if you have never known it, you just don’t know. This inability to know before you know is why people find themselves in the misery of counterfeit love. If you’ve never known the real thing, every fake thing that comes along seems like the real thing. True love is known as soon as it happens. You will recognize it. Counterfeit love will fool you, but true love will not ever fool you. You will absolutely know it when you have it.

2. True love exposes counterfeit love.

When you find true love, you will never fall for counterfeit love ever again. You will look back on past relationships and wonder how you could ever be fooled like that. People with true love make the expression that they thought they had been in love before, but they realized they had never known love before that moment when they discovered true love. The contrast is just that stark.


3. True love is mutual.

True love is not a one sided thing. Both people feel the same thing for the other person. They may express it differently. Yoko Ono was reserved in her Japanese way while John Lennon was open and exuberant in his expression of love. But it was mutual. They absolutely adored each other. There is no such thing as one sided true love. This is better known as infatuation or obsession. This leads to tragedy. True love is not tragic in this sense. True love can only be tragic when one of the lovers dies and the other must carry on.

4. True love dreads death.

People with counterfeit love contemplate future break ups and divorce. People in true love contemplate death. The reason for this is because people in true love realize that death is the only thing that will separate them. There is no break up or divorce in their future. Their devotion goes to the grave.

5. True love is immediate.

True love does not grow or evolve over time. If it takes time to develop, this is counterfeit love. This is people convincing themselves that they can’t do any better as they learn to hold their noses and accept what they have. With true love, the sparks are instant. True love is like a volatile chemical reaction that turns into a steady simmer that does not cease.

6. True love is inspiring.

When people see true love in others, it gives them hope, and they see that it exists. The tragedy is that they then go out and fall into the first bit of counterfeit love they can find.

7. True love has no regrets.

With true love, there is no such thing as “the one that got away.” True love when discovered acts and does not fail to act. True love will not escape you or get away. You can’t fuck it up.

8. True love does not diminish or die.

True love may be overwhelming at first and settle down from that first conflagration. This is like emerging from a dark basement and having the light hit your eyes. It stings at first, and it takes time to adjust. But the light does not diminish. Your eyes simply adjust to the brightness. This light will never go out. Counterfeit love fades because it wasn’t real in the first place. True love never fades. People in true love are perpetual newlyweds.

9. True love has no ulterior motives.

True love does not care about money, status, or a fine looking piece of ass. People with true love are with each other purely to be in the companionship of the other person. Often, true love creates mismatches between people of differing looks, social classes, wealth, etc. It doesn’t matter. Those two are going to be together whether it makes sense to the rest of the world or not. True love does not use the other person for the sake of some other end.

10. True love is friendship.

People in true love describe each other as best friends. They enjoy each other’s company, and they will talk for hours. They love to do things with each other they normally don’t enjoy doing with others or alone.

11. True love recognizes true love in others.

People with true love immediately recognize others who have also found true love. There are common patterns and looks in the eyes that are familiar to those with true love. Their eyes light up when their beloved is in the room. It isn’t forced or saccharine.

I do not know how people can find true love. I don’t think you can read a book on it or visit a website or glean tips from people. True love is really a happy accident. The best advice I can give is to not waste time trying to find it. Let it find you. As for those stuck in counterfeit love, make the best of it. I don’t know what to tell you on that. True love is something you find not something you make.

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